So last night I decided to play the new Black Ops 6 campaign after waiting all week. Booted up my PC, launched the game, and bam – got hit with that damn DirectX error right when the loading screen should’ve appeared. Screen went black, error message popped up about “DX device removal” or whatever. Super frustrating.
First Attempt: The Obvious Stuff
Started with the basics. Restarted my computer three times – nope. Checked for Windows updates and installed some patches – still crashed. Tried launching in safe mode through * launcher by holding shift during startup. Game ran like a potato but same error popped up. Felt like wasting an hour already.
Driver Disaster Zone
Then I went down the graphics driver rabbit hole. Uninstalled my current NVIDIA driver using DDU cleaner in safe mode. Reinstalled the latest version from scratch. No change. Rolled back to last month’s driver. Still broken. Tried that “clean install” checkbox everyone talks about. Crashed faster this time.
DirectX Hail Marys
Got desperate and started messing with DirectX itself. Ran DXDIAG – no issues found. Tried reinstalling DirectX with web installer – said I already had latest version. Deleted the game’s config files under Documents folder. Reset all settings. Nothing. Even reinstalled Visual C++ redistributables for good measure. Total disaster.
The Random Fix That Worked
After two hours, I stumbled on some random forum post. Dude said his fix was closing all background apps like Discord or Wallpaper Engine. Turns out my RGB keyboard software was causing conflict. Closed Razer Synapse, launched game – and holy crap it worked! Smooth gameplay immediately. Also tested turning off overlays:
- Disabled Xbox Game Bar completely
- Turned off Discord overlay
- Unplugged my second monitor during gameplay
Final Solution Combo
Got consistent results by doing these together:
- Force close all gaming peripheral apps
- Disable every single overlay service
- Lower in-game texture resolution just for first launch
- Run * as administrator every time
Still don’t know why it works but it does. Played four hours straight without crashes. Sometimes fixes are stupidly simple after all that headache.